Saturday, March 12, 2011

Weekend Matinee: DROP ZONE

It's Saturday Afternoon and if you're anything like me, you need something to watch while you nurse that aching back that's keeping you from doing all that cleaning (sorry FutureWife!). Well then, I got just the thing for you: The 1994 Wesley Snipes skydiving classic DROP ZONE!

Package this with Point Break and Terminal Velocity and you got yourself a party. Well, you know, except for the fact that no one would show up for it.

Under the direction of John Badham (not to be confused with Hal Needham), Snipes plays a US Marshall who's tasked with taking a criminal computer hacker to a safe house. But, because this is an action movie, the plane gets overtaken by terrorists (led by Gary Busey, of course) who steal the hacker, blow a hole in the plane, and skydive away while killing Theo Huxtable. Distraught over the loss of this 80s icon, and met with disbelief from his superiors that anyone could jump out of a 747, Snipes opts to work outside of the law to bring the terrorists to justice. You know, typical action movie stuff.

From there the movie becomes almost a superficial copy of Point Break, as Snipes tries to learn the ins and outs of skydiving so he can jump in some competition or something. Honestly, I was only half watching this one so I'm not really sure. All I know is that Snipes wears the most ridiculous looking pants throughout, rides a silly looking motorcycle, and somehow can't land the girl even though she's played by Yancy Butler.

Much like most of Snipes' movies, this one is fun but lacks the total insanity of most of the top tier action stars stuff. He has a few great lines, a couple of great stunts, but in the end it's no Commando or Cobra. But really, what is?

Sorry it's not the ringing endorsement that these normally are, but ever since Deadzone everything just seems a bit less insane. Here, check out this compilation of the best of Drop Zone and make up your own mind.